RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Parables of Jesus Christ Parakletike
under the throne into the garden, divides itself into four streams, which, when they have reached the border of hell upon the lowest division, sink under hell, and, through underground passages, flow to the ocean and a part of the earth, where they reappear in three different localities, forming in Armenia the Euphrates and the Tigris, in Ethiopia the Nile (Gihon), and in the west of Europe the Danube (Pishon). Cosmas Indicopleustes (sixth century) represents the divisions as rising in trapezoid form, and understands by " Pishon " the Ganges. Moses Bar-Cepha (tenth century) puts Paradise this side of the ocean, but behind mountains which remain inaccessible to mortals; giving as his reason for this change of position, that he could not conceive of another earth on the hither side of the ocean.
The synagogue teachers, influenced first by Josephus, and later by the great medieval Jewish exegetes, in their commentaries upon Genesis and in some dictionaries, put Paradise in the very center of the earth, somewhere in the shadowy East, far removed from the approach of mortals. The four streams were Euphrates, Tigris, Nile, and Danube. " Cush " was Ethiopia, " Havilah " was India. Paradise was the intermediate home of the blessed. Islam gave the name Paradise to four regions of the known earth, famed for their beauty: (1) On the eastern spurs of Hermon; (2) around Bavan in Persia; (3) Samarkand in the Bucharest; (4) Basra on the Shatt al Arab. The true Paradise was a future possession, on the other side of death. It is remarkable that the word " paradise " occurs but once (Luke xxiii. 43) in Christ's discourses. The explanation probably is, that it had become associated with sensuous ideas of mere material happiness. Paul uses the word only when speaking symbolically (II Cor. xii. 4); so also Revelation (ii. 7).
PARAGUAY: A republic south of the central part of South America, bounded on the north by Bolivia and Brazil, on the east by Brazil and Argentina, and on the south and west by Argentina; area 98,000 square miles; population 631,347 (1905) of whom 50,000 are Indians. Nearly all the people are Roman Catholics, due to the fact of the early intermingling of the Spaniards with the Guarani Indians, so that nearly the entire population constitutes a mixed race, and the Guarani language is generally the vernacular, though the official language is Spanish. It was conducive to the rapid Christianizing of the country, that increasing numbers of Jesuits settled there in 1609 and after. By the creation of a patriarchal and communistic state, which embraced a large part of present Paraguay, together with some neighboring districts, the Jesuits brought the Indians in general under religious and social control, as exercised through established centers and ecclesiastical precincts that went by the name of reductiones. When the society was expelled in 1767, and Paraguay became subject to the viceroy of La Plata, the civilizing progress could not be maintained. The secession from Spain was Boon followed by an attack upon the Church, under the Dictator Francia (after 1816), unprecedented in
brutality. This policy was continued to some extent by his second successor, Lopez, who proved far more detrimental to the country by the senseless war with the three superior neighboring republics (1864 to 1870), during which the population declined two-thirds, amounting, in 1872, to about 231,000. In 1870 Paraguay obtained its constitution, which stipulated in article 3: " The state religion is the Catholic Apostolic Roman." The head of the Church must be a citizen of the state. No other religion is to be prohibited within his jurisdiction. The bishopric of Paraguay was created in 1547. Since 1881 there has existed, subject to the bishop, a seminary for education of priests and teachers, directed by Lazarists. The school system, generally, comprising also the University at Asuncion, is controlled by the State, which supervises the intermediate schools, established in five cities, and the common schools. Instruction, since 1881, has been both free and obligatory. In 1903 there were 365 state schools with 858 teachers, and only a few private schools. Of course, there are not many Protestants. By continuous immigration, the Evangelical Christians of German nationality have reached the approximate sum of 1,150 souls, organized into two congregations. These are directed by the Evangelical Church and school administration and belong to the La Plata Synod. There is also a Presbyterian congregation at Asuncion. [Mission work among the Indians and others is carried on by the Inland South America Missionary Union, founded in Edinburgh in 1902 by Mr. John Hay, a layman. This mission is interdenominational, and its ultimate aim is to cover not only Paraguay, but all inland South America.]